The trouble with dying is that we don't know when we're going to die. In the U.S., a person dies in a car accident every 20 minutes based on 2012 statistics. In 2010, nearly 2.5 million people died from a wide variety of causes including murder, accident, suicide, weather-related, natural causes, etc.

My blog has been on hiatus for a while as my father-in-law passed away recently. He was in a good health and the death was sudden, taking all of us by surprise.

The sad truth is that we're all dying and when we go, the pieces of our life our left to those still living to try and pick up and make sense of, not to mention all of the details that are needed for making final memorial arrangements. The person who died doesn't realize the stress that's left to the surviving friends and family, regardless of if there's a plan already in place.

Today's post is going to look at being as prepared as one can be when it comes to dying, whether you're young or old. Below are four things to consider when planning for your next chapter.